Over the recent years, with advancements of the Internet, consumers have come to collect pieces of information on commercial articles, purchase the commercial articles or sell the commercial article possessed on hand.
An information exchange on a network such as the Internet, etc., has hitherto involved the use of a chat site and a bulletin board system. This type of site is provided with and retains pieces of information such as article evaluations, opinions, comments, etc., created online or offline by users.
The user provides those categories of information on one hand and is provided with information from other user on the other hand. Thus, the consumers having an interest in a certain specified theme, e.g., an evaluation about a certain commercial article, have been exchanging the information with each other.
In this type of system, however, even when the user trying to exchange the information makes a query, the user must wait till an answer is given from another user. On the other hand, even when the other user gives the answer at last, there might be a case where a query originator user gives up receiving an answer at that point in time. Thus, the conventional system required synchronization to some extent between the query originator user and the respondent user.
Further, in the chat site and the bulletin board site described above, the information provided from the information provider is transferred as-is to the information recipient. Hence, there was a case where the information provided is not necessarily matched with the information required.
That is, if characteristics of the information provider in terms of a factor contributing to a selection of the commercial article are not similar to characteristics of the information recipient, the information recipient could not obtain the information suited to this recipient. For example, when obtaining information on a degree of satisfaction with an automobile, there might a case where the result of the same type car differs depending on whether the answerer is single or has a family.
Further, for instance, there is a correlation between a house-owner-oriented consumer having a high interest in pets and a house-renter-oriented consumer having a low interest in the pets. Thus, even if collecting the information without considering the factor contributing to the selection of the commercial article, there was a case in which the information collected does not invariably become effective information.
Moreover, for transmitting the information described above, as in viral communications, there was a case of utilizing such an information transmission system that an information originator is paid a fee corresponding to the number of persons to which, e.g., an E-mail is distributed.
This type of system, however, had a case where the E-mail is forcibly distributed, which might encroach upon a privacy of the user. Moreover, participants in this system must artificially distribute the E-mails, and hence the system spontaneously disappears. There was rarely a long duration of the system.
Further, there have hitherto been conducted sales of the commercial articles as by net auctions, etc., by furthering the information exchange described above. In the sales on the network also, when the seller indicates an intention of providing a commercial article, a purchaser is required to indicate an intention of consent within a predetermined period of time. Reversely, when the purchaser indicates an intention of purchasing the commercial article, the seller is required to indicate an intention of consent within a predetermined period of time.
According to the commercial article sales system conducted so far on the Internet, an optimal purchaser does not necessarily answer within the sales period indicated by the seller in, e.g., the net auction, etc. Herein, the optimal purchaser is a person who purchases the commercial article concerned at a maximum price.
Accordingly, it might happen that the user who requires this commercial article most and should purchase it at the maximum price fails to access by accident the sales site of this commercial article.
Similarly, when the wish-to-purchase person of the commercial article indicates the intention of purchasing the commercial article, the seller is required to indicate the intention of consent within the predetermined period. Herein also, an optimal seller does not necessarily answer within a purchase period shown by the wish-to-purchase person. Herein, the optimal seller is a person who sells the commercial article concerned at a minimum price.